Ellen B. Goldring

Leadership for learning: A research-based model and taxonomy of behaviors

In this article, the authors examine the components of leadership for learning employing research on highly productive schools and school districts and high-performing principals and superintendents, using a three-dimensional model of productivity. The knowledge base of leadership for learning is captured under eight major dimensions: vision for learning, instructional program, curricular program, assessment program, communities of learning, resource acquisition and use, organizational culture, and advocacy.

School context and individual characteristics: what influences principal practice?

Purpose – As they operate in complex schools principals must allocate their attention to numerous responsibilities. This paper seeks to ask three questions: how do principals allocate their attention across major realms of responsibility; to what extent do principals in different contexts emphasize different realms of responsibility; and to what extent do individual attributes affect how principals allocate their attention across realms?Design/methodology/approach – A cluster analysis is applied to data from a daily log of principal practices to identify principals who allocate their attention across major realms of responsibility in similar ways. With the three groups identified in the cluster analysis a discriminant analysis is then used to examine the individual attributes of the principals and the contexts within which these groups work to identify those individual characteristics and contextual conditions that best predict each principals cluster membership.Findings – The data from the log indicate ...

Parent Involvement and School Responsiveness: Facilitating the Home-School Connection in Schools of Choice.

School choice advocates maintain that parents who choose their schools will be involved. This study asks: (a) What are the characteristics of families who prefer different types of choice arrangements and what are their reasons for choosing? (b) How are parents involved in their children’s education under different types of choice arrangements? (c) How do schools respond to parents under different types of choice arrangements? Findings reveal that religion, income, and ethnicity are important in understanding parents’ reasons for school choice and that school type is a major factor in understanding the relationships between parent involvement and school responsiveness.

Choice, Empowerment, and Involvement: What Satisfies Parents?

School choice advocates maintain that parents who choose their schools will be satisfied with those schools. This study examines the nature of the interrelationships between parents’ satisfaction with public schools of choice and (a) parents’ empowerment, (b) parental involvement, and (c) the congruence between what parents expected of the school when deciding to enroll their child and the actual school program. Findings from a study of school choice in Israel reveal that socioeconomic status is a major factor in understanding the relationships between parent satisfaction and choice.

Parent preferences and parent choices: the public–private decision about school choice

School choice survey data from the Metropolitan Nashville Public Schools, a large county‐wide school district, is analysed to examine the characteristics of parents who consider choosing private schools for their children and those who do not. We examine differences in background, including race, educational attainment and socioeconomic status, as well as differences in parent satisfaction with their child’s previous school, parent involvement in school, parents’ priorities in school choice, as well as parents’ social networks. After controlling for background characteristics, we find that parent satisfaction with their child’s previous school was not a predictor of considering a private school. Rather, parent involvement seems to be a more important indicator of whether or not a parent would consider sending their child to a private school. In this case, parents are not ‘pushed’ away from public schools, contrary to much public rhetoric that suggests private schools are somehow inherently ‘better’ than public schools and parents who are dissatisfied with their public schools will opt for private schools. Instead, these findings suggest a ‘pull’ towards private schools. Parents may perceive that parent involvement and parent communication are more easily facilitated and valued in private schools.

The Evaluation of Principals: What and How Do States and Urban Districts Assess Leadership?

In this article we present results of a comprehensive review of principal leadership assessment practices in the United States. Our analyses of both the general content and the usage of 65 instruments, 56 at the district level and 9 at the state level, provided an in‐depth look at what and how districts and states evaluate principals. Using the learning‐centered leadership framework, we focused on identifying the congruence (or lack thereof) between documented assessment practices and the research‐based criteria for effective leadership that are associated with improved school performance. Using an iterative and deductive process for instrument content analysis, we found that states and districts focused on a variety of performance areas (e.g., management, external environment, or personal traits) when evaluating their principals, with different formats at various levels of specificity. We also found very limited coverage of leadership behaviors that ensure rigorous curriculum and quality instruction, which are linked with schoolwide improvement for the ultimate purpose of enhanced student learning. In seeking information on how principals are evaluated, we found that in most cases, the practices of leadership assessment lacked justification and documentation in terms of the utility, psychometric properties, and accuracy of the instruments.

Make Room Value Added Principals’ Human Capital Decisions and the Emergence of Teacher Observation Data

Increasingly, states and districts are combining student growth measures with rigorous, rubric-aligned teacher observations in constructing teacher evaluation measures. Although the student growth or value-added components of these measures have received much research and policy attention, the results of this study suggest that the data generated by high-quality observation systems have potential to inform principals’ use of data for human capital decisions. Interview and survey data from six school districts that have recently implemented new evaluation systems with classroom observations provide evidence that principals tend to rely less on test scores in their human capital decisions. The consistency, transparency, and specificity of observation data may provide benefits for principals seeking to use these data to inform their decision making.

Developing a Psychometrically Sound Assessment of School Leadership: The VAL-ED as a Case Study

Research has consistently shown that principal leadership matters for successful schools. Evaluating principals on the behaviors shown to improve student learning should be an important leverage point for raising leadership quality. Yet principals are often evaluated with the use of instruments with no theoretical background and little, if any, documented psychometric properties. To address this need, a team of researchers in principal leadership, assessment development, and psychometrics developed the Vanderbilt Assessment of Leadership in Education (VAL-ED). The purpose here is to report on iterative development work where the instrument was tested and revised across several cycles. Future work to investigate the instrument’s psychometric properties is identified. After an extensive item writing and instrument development phase, the authors embarked on a series of studies designed to guide improvements to the instrument. These studies include a sorting study, two rounds of cognitive interviews, a bias review, and two rounds of small- scale pilot tests. Results and implications from each study are discussed. The iterative development process helped improve the clarity of instructions and items while building a growing collection of preliminary validity and reliability evidence. At the end of the development process, the VAL-ED represents a promising instrument for assessing principal instructional leadership.The VAL- ED also represents a tool for possible use by principal leadership researchers in measuring the effectiveness of school principals.

The Changing Context of K–12 Education Administration: Consequences for Ed.D. Program Design and Delivery

This article explores the changing context of school leadership in our nation, a context that requires education leaders who are skilled and knowledgeable with a new set of dispositions to lead complex, diverse, and innovative institutions. The article also discusses recent critiques of existing leadership preparation programs, with emphasis on what has been said about the Ed.D. and Ph.D. degrees in educational leadership. Data are provided about trends in advanced degree offerings in higher education institutions, and the mission statements of top-ranked graduate programs in education leadership are assessed. Finally, the article discusses the consequences that these trends, critiques, and the changing context of school leadership might have upon the design and delivery of leadership preparation programs for current and aspiring school leaders.

Elementary School Principals as Boundary Spanners: Their Engagement with Parents

The elementary school principal, the chief administrator at the local school level, occupies the boundary‐spanning role. One aspect of the principal′s role as boundary spanner is to engage with parents. The principals′ interactions with parents in terms of their boundary‐spanning functions are described. Interviews of 113 suburban elementary school principals suggest they are concerned with buffering and bridging between the school organisation and their parental clientele as boundary spanners. When buffering, principals mediate between angry parents and their superiors at central office and moderate the impact of complaining parents on their schools. When bridging, principals aim at obtaining parental support through promoting public relations.